Headlyings

posted by The Sailor @ 11:09 AM Permalink

Petraeus Talks of Troop Withdrawal

and

Bush set to endorse withdrawal of troops

Sounds good, eh?

Ehh, not so much. Read the fine print:"[Bush said] will make the cuts ­conditional on improvements in security." There are no improvements in security, there are no improvements in the Iraqi government, the only improvements are in Bush & Petraeus' ability to redefine what progress is.

Just like they redefined what a 'drop in violence' means.

Besides, Bush and Petraeus are only referring to the withdrawal of the 'surge' troops that have already been scheduled to be rotated back home to their families (after their tours were extended from 12 to 15 months.) They've been scheduled to return for months. It's been acknowledged by the Pentagon from the start of the surge escalation that it couldn't be maintained, i.e. The reductions announced by Bush represented only a slight hastening of the originally scheduled end of the troop increase that Bush announced in January.

And a really sad note, in Petraeus' own words: when asked if the war in Iraq was making Americans safer he said "Sir, I don’t know, actually."

Sigh.

And among the many things that really pissed me off was Petraeus' claim that

“I'm as frustrated with the situation as anybody else my family also knows something about sacrifice."

Reallllly!? Gee, that lobster tortellini sure must be hard to swallow, kinda like that crap you tried to feed us in your congressional appearance.

Update I: Even the White House's own report released today says

Iraq shows improved progress on just one of 18 political and security goals laid out by Congress. That improvement involves a movement toward enacting and implementing legislation on so-called "de-Baathification. "That's an effort to allow former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to rejoin the political process.

Whaa? The only improvement has been to consider letting Saddam's henchmen back in control!? That's progress!?

Update II: We know why Bush is lying, but why is Petraeus pushing the White House spin so hard? He wants to be President!



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: Iraq war, more Bush lies